Well Behind by Rod Miller

“...and those members of the body, which we deem less honorable, on these we bestow more abundant honor, and our unseemly members come to have more abundant seemliness.” I Corinthians 12:23 NAS

In the Apostle Paul’s writings, he mentions, on more than one occasion, a particular metaphor associated intimately with humans. It is the well known metaphor of the church being like our bodies. Paul goes on to explain that we are thus to appreciate the variety of spiritual gifts bestowed upon and love all members of the church because they are like members of one’s own body; we need them to live and to function. It is typical of New Testament symbolism: bluntly simple yet profound and compelling. We get it instantly. And the metaphor can be stretched quite far. I heard a sermon once on the big toe.

I should like to stretch the metaphor in quite another direction, one that, I hope, will not offend. As a young brat in church I looked for every opportunity to cause laughter amongst my puerile peers. One assured source of humor was the consideration of the members of my congregation who represented, perhaps, the less than polite portions of the corporeal body. However, sinful my motives at the time, it may not have been amiss to consider those other portions. In fact, I should very much like to suggest a meaningful way to consider, metaphorically, the behind.
With the body metaphor we generally think about hands and feet as suitable (and simple) in meaning: some are called to literally work for God, others may be called to travel far afield to spread the gospel. We may consider the arms, strong, muscular but also suitable for holding and hugging for comfort. No doubt many pastors must figure, in some manner, the mouth as their suitable metaphorical compliment. Finally, I suspect, there are theologians who, not wrongly, would consider the brain as their part of the body. Be all these as they may, surely there is no one who would want to consider their church body role as human back end. This may be in error. Let us for a moment consider the lowly bottom and its function.

The bottom has many functions, of course, but for the purposes of the metaphor it will do to focus in on one: waste removal. While we obviously do not refer to it in polite company, who among us would not want to admit that the waste disposal function of the bottom isn’t absolutely essential? The removal of waste is critical to the body’s function. Why? Because the ingestion of food is critical to the body’s growth and health. Part of what a body does, an alive body, is create energy and vitality from the intake of food. If the waste products of the food are not expelled, the body will die.

There is a similar sort of function among the church body: the critic. There is, no doubt, a need for some in the body to closely watch and evaluate and suggest when the church is in error. To put it more bluntly, there is a lot of crap in a lot of churches and it needs to be evacuated. Who does this job? Who, exactly, is this critical person who examines and passes judgment? To my mind this is the job of those particular gadflies who offer suggestions on where the church has made mistakes. Some may write about these problems in the form of novels, some may paint pictures, others may write sermons on how to do something better. Typically, what is at work behind these critics is, one assumes, the desire to see things improved, to make certain of accuracy to Biblical teaching, to reason, to faith. Implicit in all their projects, however, lurks the notion that something done previously is wrong, that there was an error, a misconception. That wrongness, that mistake, must be, so to speak, removed from the body.

In many ways contemporary artists have taken on this mantle; Christian artists seem to be, in this regard, no different than their secular counterparts. In a way, naturally, all art offers some sort of implicit criticism. For example, Chartres cathedral, an obvious manifestation of Christian values, demonstrates within its stone walls an orderliness echoed in God’s created universe that was to be echoed in the lives of the cathedral’s parishioners. It quietly urged the visitor to follow this way and not another. It did, and continues to do so, with delight. But this manner of art is no longer typically the case.

Late in the nineteenth century, European artists came up with a novel concept: using art to point out all of the things that society was doing wrongly. This notion stuck fast and hard to western art, particularly after the World Wars, and now manifests itself in postmodern works that attack notions of patriarchy, homophobia, environmental corruption, pro-choice, organized religion, and the republican party. So much so is art now about social criticism one finds it difficult to recall it being about anything else. Christian artists, not immune to the secular art world, also offer their share of critical analysis, sometimes regarding the secular world, often regarding the church (or The Church).

It is suggested that, taking Paul as a guide, this is not necessarily a bad thing for the Christian artist to pursue. A through critique and honest evaluation are what are require of us individually and also corporately. The church needs this sort of guidance, correction, evaluation for the same reasons we individually need it. If we honestly consider it, we may even admit that it is good when others point out our sin, our mistakes, our blunders, our ingratitude, our dullness. Of course, we also honestly consider those who do so to be annoying. We have all been corrected badly and we have all been corrected to good effect. The difference, typically, is one of style. How one suggests correction makes all the difference.

It is here that we find a singular problem of immense magnitude: pride. On the surface, it may appear that to be a critic is something of a privilege. We have all known this position very well. At one time or another we have used our minds, and our tongues, to correct. The image conjured is of a masochistic school marm who bitingly corrects her lazy and stupid pupils. Let me suggest another image: the parent. When was it pleasurable, or an exercise in vanity, to correct one’s child? Discipline and correction, particularly corporal, is not a pleasure for the parent, in fact, it is painful. It is not something that puffs up the parent, or gives them a sort of delightful feeling of power. One approaches it with, if I may use the terms, fear and trembling. One does it because one must, not because one desires it.

Perhaps this may be a model for church criticism. It is a necessary process, one that the body needs to live but it is one that should be approached with great care and great caution. No one who thinks it their place to offer critiques on the church should be proud of that fact. If one seems to be critiquing from a place of pride, that individual should be reminded of the metaphor, they ought to remember just which part of the body they are. One can think on that with humility.

Rod Miller holds degrees from Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas, the University of Iowa, and was graduated with his Ph.D. from the University of Louisville in 1998. He teaches art history at Hendrix College, a small and beautiful liberal arts school in Conway, Arkansas. His main research interests are in the history of collegiate design. Currently he is at work on a monograph of Jens Fredrick Larson, an early twentieth century American architect, and a guidebook to the West Point campus.